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No, that's not the reason. A prior decision may have been in error but the decision was not unconstitutional.
If the 300 had not been unconstitutional, they wouldn't have been overturned.
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"The Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution."
and the state can make the restrictions you mentioned.
If the state makes a law that calls for a penalty or other response that restricts or takes away your right to use your shotgun on a pheasant hunt, the state is FORBIDDEN to make that law by the clear language of the 2nd amendment. As I pointed out above.
Why not? If the purpose of the second amendment is to have an armed citizenry ready for militia service then SCOTUS was explaining the type of weapons are used in a militia which is not a sawed off shotgun. Their opinion even says it
You misread the opinion. SCOTUS specifically said that it could NOT say a sawed-off was a weapon used by a militia and thus it could NOT say if the 2nd amendment was involved in the laws banning such weapons.
Its a matter of federal jurisdiction. If the 2nd amendment was not involved in the ban, it certainly was not infringed by that gun law.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
If the 300 had not been unconstitutional, they wouldn't have been overturned.
The logical fallacy here is that every SCOTUS opinion does not find something constitutional or unconstitutional.
If the state makes a law that calls for a penalty or other response that restricts or takes away your right to use your shotgun on a pheasant hunt, the state is FORBIDDEN to make that law by the clear language of the 2nd amendment. As I pointed out above.
Only if a non-plugged shotgun is a weapon commonly used by a militia. (See the previous discussion.)
The logical fallacy here is that every SCOTUS opinion does not find something constitutional or unconstitutional.
Actually, it does, by definition. As the SCOTUS website itself notes SCOTUS hears cases that either directly involve Constitutional issues, or laws to which the Equal Protection Clause must apply per the 14th Amendment. All of the above are issues of Constitutionality.
Only if a non-plugged shotgun is a weapon commonly used by a militia. (See the previous discussion.)
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that any particular kind of weapon has to be configured (or not configured) in any particular way, or has to be in use by any particular group, to be covered by the 2nd amendment's command that no govt can make any law restricting or taking away the right.
Once again we can see an anti-gun-rights hater twisting himself into strange pretzel shapes trying to pretend the 2nd amendment has any exceptions.
The founding fathers didn't make clear their intent with the wording of 2A, and that has had horrible consequences.
And they failed to predict the problems that would arise if every baby born on American soil would receive citizenship, and thus guarantee the parents could stay also.
The framers of the Constitution got a LOT right, but couldn't have predicted that in changing times throughout the centuries, some of the things that were true in the late 1700's would not be still true and apply today.
Our US Constitution is not a suicide pact. We need to be flexible on a very few things that were good when they were written, but have devolved into mistakes.
First bolded: The founding fathers wrote in the linguistic style of their time, and they wrote the 2nd with perfect clarity. What they said was “because a secure state needs to have a functional militia, the government cannot disarm the people.†There is no obfuscation in the 2nd, and anyone who thinks there is has never read classical literature. If you can’t figure out the wording of the 2nd Amendment, Jane Austen must have looked like hieroglyphics to you.
Second bolded: We always have been. The Constitution is built to be flexible, but there is a process which must be used to change it. The problem with the anti Constitution crowd (which you belong in if you think the Government has or should have the power to restrict firearms) is not that they dislike firearms or even that they want to ban them. The problem is that the document which is literally the foundation of our nation means so little to them that they will gleefully trample it. If you want the Government - which a couple of years ago most of the anti Constitution crowd was scared spitless was being taken over by the next Mussolini - to have the power to disarm or restrict the arms of the citizens, have the moral fortitude to follow the law of the land and put it forth as an amendment. That’s how we have changed the “outdated†Constitution multiple times in the last two and a half centuries.
Right now, the anti Constitution Party is pushing gun control because they are in power and they think they can accomplish it by popular demand. They have the support of people who either have no knowledge of or no respect for our Constitution and seem to think of it as a guidebook which can be ignored at whim. That belief is fostered by the anti Constitution Party because it makes it easier for them.
Question, though, for all the people wanting to “restrict†firearms: What if all the fears of the “Trump is an authoritarian and is going to use the military against the people†amateur psychic wannabes were to come true with a future Administration? Do you want that Administration to have the precedent of partial restriction of firearms as a basis to ban them altogether and actually become fascist? Would you prefer that future generations have a means to stand up to that Government, or would you advise them to just accept the fate you chose for them? Because the Government never willingly gives up power, but will always seek more.
If the states have gun laws which have been allowed to stand by SCOTUS (they do!) then those laws, by definition, are NOT unconstitutional.
One of the more extreme examples of an unconstitutional law being allowed to stand by the Supreme Court, is in the US v. Miller case from 1939.
The Fed govt had passed a law a few years before then called the 1934 National Firearms Act. Among other things, it put a huge tax on every transfer (sale, gifting etc.) of a few kinds of weapons and accessories such as short-barreled shotguns, silencers etc. that are involved in Interstate Commerce - that being the latest excuse for govt to violate the 2nd amendment.
A bootlegger and bank robber named Miller was found to have crossed a state line with an old sawed-off shotgun in his truck, without having paid the 1934 NFA tax.
The Miller case first came to a Federal District Court in Arkansas, where the judge it was assigned to, immediately found the 1934 National Firearms Act an unconstitutional violation of Miller's right to keep and bear arms. The judge ruled that a $200 tax on the transfer of a $5 shotgun was obviously being done for the purpose of stopping people from buying or selling the gun, not just for generating revenue to keep the government running.
Miller thanked his pro bono (i.e. working for free) lawyer and shortly went home and was not seen again. In the meantime, the govt appealed the case directly to the Supreme Court. Miller's pro bono lawyer could not find his client (Miller was found dead in a stream bed with four bullets in his chest shortly after the Supremes heard the case), and didn't want to go to through the huge process of preparing the case for the USSC, so he dropped his representation of Miller.
On the day of the hearing, a full slate of government lawyers showed up for the prosecution. NO ONE showed up for the defense. The entire "Defense" side of the courtroom was empty. The government took advantage of this windfall, and read several flat lies into the record, there being no one in the room to debunk them:
1.) The 2nd amendment only protects weapons used in the military, or closely resembling them;
2.) The short-barreled shotgun owned by Miller was not similar to a military weapon;
3.) The 2nd only applies to people in the "militia";
4.) The 1934 NFA's imposition of the $200 tax on the transfer of a $5 shotgun was NOT done for the purpose of inhibiting transfer of the weapon.
.... and the Justices rubber-stamped these lies into an opinion. It was a weird, twisted "opinion", full of phrases like "Well, since nobody told us in the courtroom that the 2nd amendment covered ALL guns whether civilian or military, we can't definitively rule that a civilian gun is covered" and "Since nobody here told us that this shotgun was similar to a military weapon, we can't rule that it's covered by the 2nd..." etc.
What should have been an open-and-shut case favoring the Defense, turned instead to a show trial for the Prosecution (government), and the District Court's verdict was reversed.
Ever since then, the anti-gun-rights haters have used the Miller case as a "precedent" somehow establishing that the lies were true, the 2nd only covered military weapons etc. etc. And they have been VERY careful never to bring up these issues again to the Supreme Court, knowing that if both sides were present for a change, the Miller case would be overturned in a heartbeat.
There is no obfuscation in the 2nd, and anyone who thinks there is has never read classical literature.
Or perhaps they DO understand the 2nd clearly, but see an opportunity to lie about what it means so they can fool others into thinking it doesn't say what it says.
I don't know which person is more contemptible: Someone who can't read or understand classical literature, or a person who deliberately lies about what a classical phrase says in a malicious attempt to mislead others.
You misread the opinion. SCOTUS specifically said that it could NOT say a sawed-off was a weapon used by a militia and thus it could NOT say if the 2nd amendment was involved in the laws banning such weapons.
I should have highlighted the part after
Quote:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense
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Its a matter of federal jurisdiction. If the 2nd amendment was not involved in the ban, it certainly was not infringed by that gun law.
l.
SCOTUS reversed a district court decision which said the NFA violated Miller's 2A rights because a sawed off shotgun doesn't have a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia so the 2A doesn't protect the possession of that weapon. In other words that weapon isn't common use for militia purposes.
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The Supreme Court reversed the district court, holding that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual the right to keep and bear a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun. Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice James Clark McReynolds reasoned that because possessing a sawed-off double barrel shotgun does not have a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, the Second Amendment does not protect the possession of such an instrument
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Why not? If the purpose of the second amendment is to have an armed citizenry ready for militia service then SCOTUS was explaining the type of weapons are used in a militia which is not a sawed off shotgun. Their opinion even says it
